Sword and shield. (Clinton, Miss.) 1885-1888, 1887-09-03
BILL NYE ON ECONOMY.
Philosophical Thoughts on the Various
Grades of Gotham's Barber-Shops.

| read an essay recently on the subject
of economy, which greatly interested me,
writes Bill Nye in the New York World
It related to the great expenses which
really aggregated from little ones, and
dealt with the matter of daily papers,
boot blacks, shaving expenses, baths, ETC.,
and showed how millions Of the peoples
money were annually squandered IN this
way that ought to go towards buying
books. The article set me to thinking and
resolved to investigate it. was more
] especially taken with the idea OF extraVa-
gance in the matter Of BARRIERS and barber.
shops. You can go to a gorgeous shop and
pay fifteen cents and a tip for shave, or
you can go where you may avoid the tap,
or you can go to ten cent shop, or you
can get shaved on the Bowery for five
cents, or you can ignore the whole busi-
ness and let the wind blow through your
whislers.
] Now let us enter the seductive and fra
grant field of statistics for moment and
see how we may economize Ii we shave
every day and tip the barber at 10 cent
shop, where we are dealt with in gentle
and soothing way by talented men, we can
readily see that it is no great trick to in
vest s. to 500 per year.
If we lower our standard little and get
a plain 15-cent shave, with no funny busl-
ness, we can put the bill at say $50, and
we will get just as good a shave, though
| of course a young man with clinging
nature, one who pines to be fondled by
some one all the time, would miss the ca
ress which a tip generally calls forth.
This little sketch is for him. II no one else
ever speaks kind word to him or pats his
Adams apple with powder puff in play
full, bantering way, do not chide him for
tipping barber over and over if he wants
10 in order to secure these attentions from
one of his own sex.
Carrying the matter still further, we
and that by going down on the Bowery we
can get good, clean shave for five cents,
with bay rum and cocoaine. This will
cost SIS per year. Or we can allow our
Seards to grow wild and wooliy, with frag-
ments of cracker and autumn leaves III
them, at very trifling expense
Last week l was thunderstruck when l
found how much could be saved by chang
ing from a fifteen-cent barber to five
cent barber and keeping it up for a year.
Counting 800 days as fair estimate of the
number on which would be apt to shave,
found that by this change l could have
at the end of the year $50, with which to
buy books or cross-barred trousers or any
other means of intellectual improvement
which might choose. could buy one OF
those expensive books that Mr. De Lux
occasionally gets out, or l could hear
Patti, or buy a small yet fragrant dog for
$50. l could also buy myself some more
hair or get my teeth filed. / could take
a classical course on the banjo or buy an
interest in bird dog with S3O
But l wanted, more than any thing else,
to get more books l wanted new
photograph album most of all An album
with illustrations in it, to lay on the par
lor table and explain to strangers in low,
; passionate tones, is a never-ending source
of pleasure to the thinking mind. With
frontis- piece showing the proprietor as he
looked with side whiskers, and, later on,
a view where he had himself photo
graphed with chin whiskers and holding
a wartime plug hat in his swollen hands;
with picture of grandmother holding a
Bible as though it might be glass bomb,
and a front view of sightless child that
makes up for it's total absence Of eyes by
introducing soul-stirring mouth that
would make a golden-halred ball Of North
Carolina butter turn white in single
night With ali these little specimens of
plastic art, l often think that a photo
graph album will do more towards enter
tanning mixed company than any other
literary work with which am familiar.
So went into low-price barber-shop a
week ago and began to save $50 for the
purpose of adding to my library. l soon
discovered that in fve-cent barber-shop
you get less consideration and a lower
: grade of lather up your nose than else
where.
believe that the man who shaves you
J ! ~. r.-s
bly, he works up some Of his fattest pat
rons that way. Anyhow, the soap he uses
smells badly and tastes worse than any
soap have ever participated in. At this
price of shave one saves financially, but
loses cutaneously.
The chair sat in was not good easy
chair, and the spiral springs IN it OCCASION
ally had to come to the surface for more
air. became very much attached to one
of these springs, and the ten cents I saved
on the shave [ had to pay a taller down
town who trepanned my sadly demoralized
trousers for me.
The chair was also mentally wreck,
and its memory was failing, l thought.
, Just as would relax my muscles and close
my ewes this tottering old chair would for
get itself, and the worm out trigger that
held the head-rest would slip about nine
cogS Then with low death-rdIU1e IL
would fall about a foot and disturb my in
tellectual faculties. You can get shaved
quicker for five cents than you can for fif-
teen. but the towels are more clammy and
| the bay rum is rather more of chestnut,
judge.
Suffice it that am not going to continue
the course of economy that l had in
augurated for the yeanr for l am opposed
r to the boarding and accumulation OF sur
: plus. Money IS tending too much towards
Capitalization any way and do not want
to encourage it.
. While l may not be able to secure the
4 books which I contemplated buying with
: nv savings, 1 can visit the Chamber o1
| Horrors at the Musee and improve my
2 mind in such ways by actual observation,
We do not get all our education from
books. We may easily obtain many rein
8 ing and ennobling ideas from other sources
/, than the musty tones which decorate the
Q shelves of ouc libraries.
One of the brainiest men ever knew
3 if 1 may be allowed the temporary use o1
! that term, aman, too, who had succeeded
. in amassing quite fortune as a result ol
! native shrewdness and knowledge o.
human nature, once admitted to me in ;
sudden burst Of confidence inspired uer